Problems seating boolits straight.

[thx997303]

I'm loading the 135 gr Ranch dog boolit in my 9mm and the boolits are seating crooked enough to easily notice.

I have a set of 9mm carbide Lee dies with the factory seater stem.

What do you guys think I could do to get these things seating straight?

I was thinking a flat nosed seater stem would work.

[crabo]

What are your boolits casting at? Mine are running .358 and up. I'm using 50/50 pure and WWs. I've tried from 700 up to 840 degrees. These are running large enough I am going to try them in my 357s and crimp in the first groove.

[thx997303]

They're casting .356" which works just fine, but I'm thinking I may beagle the mold.

[noylj]

You can send 2-3 bullets to Lee and have a custom seater stem made. I prefer to have the seater contact around the ogive of the bullet to self-center, with a void in the center so the seater does not touch the bullet meplat and there is a space for excess lube. Lee charges something like $12 for the service.
You can try to ensure that the bullet is sitting level on the case mouth before seating the bullet.
You can get a Hornady seating die with a sliding section that helps align the bullet.

[HeavyMetal]

I bvelieve the Lee dies use that "floating" seater design. A good idea if everything fits right, in this case it sounds like enough slop between shape of the boolit and the shape of the stem is allowing this to happen.

Try a piece of alumnium foil. Roll it into a loose ball large enough to fill the "cavity' on your current seating stem and then run a boolit into it to "swage" that ball of foil into the same shape as your boolit nose. I might make a ram with a flat area on it to set the boolit on as a temporary "square" support base to get the new shape as close as possible to dead on.

Use a little boolit lube between the foil and the seater plug to act as a glue and I think you'll get a lot of rounds seated before you have an issue with it.

[-06]

I like those Hornady tubes that guide the boolits straight. If their other dies worked as well....

[geargnasher]

J, make the boolits fit the seater stem with a dot of JB Weld and a boolit nose, same way you'd do it with a top punch. If the meplat is bigger than the stem rod, turn the stem around backwards and use the flat end. Either way, bush the stem to a close fit in the adjuster plug by carefully building it up with masking tape, electrical tape, foil tape, whatever you have.

I've been known to make my own Lee seater stems with a deprimed 9mm shell case, some JB Weld, universal case flaring die, a stack of small washers, and the nose of the boolit type I was fitting to it.

Gear

[thx997303]

Guys, thanks for the help.

I filled the seater stem with hot glue and pressed it flat on wax paper on the table.

It helped a ton, and I'm gonna be re doing it to fit the boolit precisely.

[thx997303]

Alright, I redid the stem to fit the boolit nose.

What I did was expanded a 38 spcl case, and seated the boolit as deep in the case as possible.

Then I adjusted the crimp down to hold the seater stem in a tight friction fit.

Sprayed pam on the inside of the case, filled the nose partway with hot glue, and pressed it together with my case full of boolit.

Tadah! perfect fit, and I know the stem was molded straight.

1st pic (http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll331/thx997303/100_3764.jpg)

2nd pic (http://i312.photobucket.com/albums/ll331/thx997303/100_3765.jpg)

[geargnasher]

Well there you go! Didn't think of doing that with the case for alignment. When customizing top punches, I size the boolit and eject it about a third of the way, leaving it straight in the die, then clean and degrease the top punch, put a light coat of JPW on the nose and wipe it off, then dope the top punch with JB Weld Quick and let the weight of the handle make nad hold the impression. I scribe a mark on the punch afterward that indicates the "front" side, since the 450 ram is so wobbly the new form of the punch will be way off center.

Gear